Davoli Davolisint

Well there it is, Italy's first analog synthesizer. The rare Davolisint
was released in 1972. It's not so much a synthesizer as it is a
monophonic organ. And while it may be a historic instrument in terms of
Italy's contribution to synthesizers, the Davolisint is actually kind of
awkward and leaves a lot to be desired for us 21st century folks.

It was produced by Davoli Krundaal Musical SRL, a small Italian company
that manufactured various musical accessories and organs. The Davolisint
began their foray into synthesis. It offered two analog oscillators with
only one very harsh square waveform, independent vibrato for each
oscillator and portamento. And that was pretty much all! No filters,
envelopes or oscillator syncing. The only real option available to shape
the sound was the ability to detune the two VCOs. And before getting too
excited about it having two VCOs, remember that they have the exact same
waveform. The keyboard is only playable over two-octaves; the lower grey
keys of the keyboard are redundant momentary switches that mirror the
controls of the rocker switches above.

On the left-hand side of the keyboard are rocker switches to engage the
various footages of the oscillators, from 32' all the way up to an
ear-piercing 1/2'. Multiple footages could be engaged at one time
creating a full sound many octaves thick. However, this is not
polyphony—the Davolisint is monophonic and uses an octave
divide-down technology to layer octaves of the same note. The rocker
switches on the right side turn on or off VCO1, VCO2, Vibrato 1, Vibrato
2, T1 and T2 (which engage increasing amounts of portamento) and
C—a sort of constant drone of the low C note. In the middle there
are sliders to adjust the tuning of VCO1 and VCO2, and the rates and
depths of Vibrato 1 and Vibrato 2. All that remains is the
"Extend" lever which is a spring loaded pitch bend—pull
it down and the pitch bends upward one full octave, and then the lever
slowly returns to its default position.

So most of these basic rocker switches—footage, Vibrato 1 and 2,
T1 and T2 and C all have redundant control from the keys within the grey
octave. The idea was probably that while playing, it would be easier to
make quick changes to your current settings right from the keyboard
instead of reaching for the rockers. For example, want to quickly add a
dose of vibrato to VCO2 during that solo, just hold down the VIB 2 key
while playing, as needed. Or you could add extra octave footages while
playing, just to articulate some variations to the sound, or to shift
the keyboard up or down some octaves. In fact, creative use of the grey
keys could actually lead to some really dynamic performance results not
really possible with traditional synths.

While the Davolisint may seem like something that, arguably even
deserves to be called a synthesizer, it should be remembered that the
year was 1972. Compact synthesizers were only just beginning to emerge.
In fact many synths about to appear in this era included analog
synthesizers based on scaled down modular systems, string synthesizers
and organ-based divide-down synths like this one. In other words, the
synthesizer world was still developing. So limitations aside, the
Davolisint does deserve a place in history as being the first Italian
synthesizer, soon to be followed by those from Crumar, Siel, Logan,
Elka, EKO and Jen. It has been used by Dave Sinclair of Caravan
and the Moog Cookbook.

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